Making a game of global tragedy

Nicolas Van Praet, National Post09.05.2012

Preliminary screen grabs of Quebec City-based Frima Studio’s Internet game based on the popular book Half The Sky, a call to fight against the oppression of women and girls in developing countries. The game is expected to be released in November.

MONTREAL — In Frima Studio’s video game Carbon Rush, players are cast as the head of a large multinational fictitiously called the “Power Corporation” and asked if they’re “ready to destroy the world for the sake of shareholders.”

The goal is to make sure that your business survives for as long as possible by earning carbon credits. Among the weapons at your disposal, you can bribe the media, corrupt local politicians and hire private militias.

It’s irony, of course. The Internet game, based on a documentary of the same name by Montreal film maker Amy Miller and released this year, centres on an all-male board of directors trying to balance profit with the company’s reputation and “green level.” The message, hammered home with video snippets of comment from real people throughout the game play, is that ordinary citizens have become the casualties in the world’s carbon offset market.

Carbon Rush is part of a larger trend toward so-called “gamification,” which technology consultant Gartner Inc. defines as employing game mechanics to non-game environments such as health, training and social change. Gartner says the aims of gamification are to achieve higher levels of engagement, change behaviours and stimulate innovation.

Now, Quebec City-based Frima, Canada’s largest locally owned game developer, is busy on its next social change gaming project. This one is tied to the popular book Half the Sky.

The book is a call to fight against the oppression of women and girls in the developing world, which its authors call the modern era’s most pervasive human rights violation. It has since turned into a movement backed by several celebrity advocates, including Meg Ryan and Eva Mendes. In the book, journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn travel to Africa and Asia and chronicle the plight of individual women struggling through daily life, sharing stories of several who overcame the odds to succeed. There is the Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery who eventually escapes from her brothel and builds a thriving retail business. There is also an Ethiopian woman, hampered by devastating injuries suffered in childbirth, who gets those wounds repaired and in time became a surgeon.

The stories “help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential,” the movement’s website states. “They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that and how we can each do our part.”

Frima won a competition to develop a Half the Sky video game for play on Facebook, and will work with Zynga Inc. on the project. The Nike Foundation and Ford Foundation are among the financiers. The game is in pre-production now. It is expected to be released in November.

Using games to incite change and better understand real life is a recent phenomenon. Nintendo Co.’s game console wii is widely supported by some as a way to get kids exercising. Electronic Arts’ SimCity is arguably a powerful way to understand the economics and politics of urban areas. Games for Change, an industry movement founded in 2004, holds annual conferences on social impact games that are considered must-attend events.

Frima’s Half the Sky contract represents a unique challenge: How do you create an enjoyable and engaging social video game based on the theme of oppression without trivializing it? And perhaps just as important, why?

Pierre Moisan, vice-president of strategy and business affairs at Frima, argues that developing a video game maximizes the potential viral power and audience of the project. He says it also engages people in a way other media can’t.

“The philosophy of the game is to transform a calamity into an opportunity,” Mr. Moisan said.

Frima’s game will not show things like rape or forced prostitution, adds Frima chief executive and founder Steve Couture, who owns the firm with two other partners. “It’s a dark subject and we want to make something really fun and engaging.”

The executives declined to provide specific production details but said it could involve traditional gaming principles like achieving levels and helping other players.

Frima waived its licence fees for the Half the Sky game. The company, which had annual revenues estimated at more than $14-million in 2010, employs 350 people at its studios in Quebec City. It is the smallest organization involved in the project, managing the largest portion of the work.

Jason Della Rocca, a Montreal-based consultant to the gaming sector, said the notion of what a video game should be is changing as industry thinkers such as Ian Bogost design games about social and political issues as varied as airport security, consumer debt and running errands in the suburbs.

“In many ways, games are really the ultimate tool to teach and to understand,” Mr. Della Rocca said. “You do have designers who really think about things in that sense and are able to tackle serious topics in a compelling way. You’re just not going to see that in a box at Wal-Mart.”

Asked whether Power Corp. was aware that its name was being used in the Carbon Rush game, a spokesman for the $9.2-billion insurance and financial services holding company said no.

The name was used in error, said Frima spokesman David Beaulieu, adding that it was an “unfortunate mistake” that was not intentional and was being corrected Wednesday.

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